A Repository for Bottled Monsters: skunk

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Letter of the Day: April 24

This one comes from an accession file we recently had scanned.

A.M.M. 6753 and 6754 Sec. I and 855 Sec VI

Fort Larned Kansas
April 24 1877

Surgeon General
U.S. Army

Sir

I have the honor to enclose herewith a receipt, taken from the A.A.Q.M. of this post for one box addressed to Surgeon General, U.S.A.

The box contains the following articles which may possess enough value to go in the Army Medical Museum.

Dr. Woodward {1. Skeleton of Jack Rabbit (young) roughly dressed.
2. “ “ of Beaver “ “ “
3. “ “ Musk Rat “ “ “
4. Carcass of Pouched Gopher in alcohol

855 Sec IV{5. Rectum and Scent Sacs (in alcohol) of Skunk – with two vials of fluid taken from the same sacs by a dropping tube. Each vial holds the entire contents of one sac. No 5 in 2 paper boxes.

A.M.M. 6753 Sec I{6. Plaster cast of stump of B.F. Wyatt – the amputated portion of which was sent to A. Med Mus. In Jan. and was numbered 6735 Surg. Section. Red ink marks the outline (less rather than more) of the great sloughs which endangered Lisfranc’s operation (the one performed) and prohibited Syme’s. The cast shows the foot rather more oblique than it is when sitting or standing.

A.M.M. 6754{7. All the phalanges and half the metatarsus of the right foot and several of the phalanges of the left foot of Wm. H. Anderson, a citizen. Amputated Jan 31, 1877 for frostbite. Report of case enclosed herewith.

Very respectfully,
Your Obt. Servt
Francis H. Atkins
A.A. Surgeon
U.S. Army

Specimens received May 17 1877

Who are we?

Mike Rhode was the chief archivist of the Museum from 1989-2011, and is the founder of this blog. I maintain an interest in the course of the museum, and will be posting relevant information.

The Army Medical Museum was founded in 1862 during the American Civil War. After World War II, a parent-child relationship was inverted and the Museum became part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Since then, the Museum has moved around Washington, stopping for years in Ford's Theatre, and on the National Mall where the building it shared with the National Library of Medicine once stood, until it was demolished in 1968 for the Hirshhorn Museum. For 35 years it was at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and now is in Silver Spring, MD.

So what about that blog name?

It's historical. I found it in a quote from one of the former curators. World War II confirmed the Army Medical Museum's primary role in pathology consultation. James Ash, the curator during the war and a pathologist, noted, "Shortly after the last war, more concerted efforts were instituted to concentrate in the Army Medical Museum the significant pathologic material occurring in Army installations." He closed with the complaint, "We still suffer under the connotation museum, an institution still thought of by many as a repository for bottled monsters and medical curiosities. To be sure, we have such specimens. As is required by law, we maintain an exhibit open to the public, but in war time, at least, the museum per se is the least of our functions, and we like to be thought of as the Army Institute of Pathology, a designation recently authorized by the Surgeon General."

After the war, it evolved into the tri-service Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

A Repository for Bottled Monsters

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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Letter of the Day: April 24

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